Iraq / Middle East & North Africa

September 25, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) strongly condemns a bomb attack on a Baghdad hotel this morning, in which a journalist from the U.S. network NBC was injured. The attack may have been aimed specifically at NBC’s Baghdad bureau, whose journalists were the hotel’s only residents, according to the network. NBC News reported…

New York, September 23, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply troubled by the decision of Iraq’s Governing Council to sanction Arabic satellite channels Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyya. Today, Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council announced that it would bar the broadcasters’ reporters from covering official press conferences and from entering official buildings for two weeks, according…

New York, September 23, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is saddened by the death of veteran Los Angeles Times correspondent Mark Fineman. According to The Los Angeles Times, Fineman died today of an apparent heart attack while on assignment in Iraq’s capital, Baghdad. Fineman, 51, had been waiting for an interview in the office…

New York, September 22, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is dismayed at the results of the U.S. military’s investigation into the August 17 killing of Reuters cameraman Mazen Dana, which concluded that U.S. soldiers acted within the rules of engagement when they shot Dana. “The U.S. military is acting as judge and jury in…

New York, September 11, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about the overnight detention of two Al-Jazeera journalists by U.S. forces in Iraq. U.S. troops detained correspondent Atwar Bahgat and her cameraman, Yasser Bahgat (no relation), last night in the Ghazaliya section of the capital, Baghdad. Atwar Bahgat told CPJ that she…

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is shocked by the death of Reuters television cameraman Mazen Dana, who was killed by machine gun fire from a U.S. tank near Baghdad yesterday. We demand a full, public investigation into this incident. According to several press accounts, Dana was struck in the chest while filming near Abu Ghraib Prison outside Baghdad, late in the afternoon on August 17. Dana had been reporting near the prison after a mortar attack had killed six Iraqis there the previous night. Eyewitnesses quoted by international media said that several journalists had been near the prison at the time of the incident and that a soldier in the tank fired on Dana as he filmed it approaching him from about 50 meters (55 yards).

New York, August 13, 2003—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is disturbed that U.S. forces forcibly detained Hassan Fattah, editor of the English-language daily Iraq Today, on Monday, August 11, after preventing him from attending a press conference. In an e-mail to CPJ, Fattah described the incident, which occurred at Baghdad’s conference center when he…

New York, August 11, 2003—A cameraman for the Qatar-based satellite channel Al-Jazeera and his assistant were injured yesterday, Sunday, August 10, during a grenade attack on U.S. troops in Baghdad. Cameraman Hussein Ali Hassan and his assistant Mustafa Hazem suffered shrapnel wounds to their legs after an assailant or assailants dropped a grenade from a…

Dear Mr. Bremer: The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is concerned about the fact that U.S. forces have detained Said Abu Taleb and Soheil Kareemi, two journalists with Iranian State Television, since July 1.